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  • Hi, everyone. I'm Jade. Today we're talking about common mistakes that native speakers

  • make. And I use the word "mistakes" -- I use that word, "mistakes", for you. I don't actually

  • listen to people and say, "You're wrong! You're wrong!" because a lot of the time, it's about

  • variety of English and accent as well. Whether they use this grammar is incorrect grammar

  • in terms of standard English. But people use it, and people say it. So that's why I'm telling

  • you about it.

  • Also, I've got so much respect for people who come and learn English, but like, you

  • could say, like, on the street, you know? They're not taking classes. They're learning

  • from the people they're around. Sometimes, the people you're around speak in the way

  • where there are these mistakes. So that's the kind of thing that you acquire. Nothing

  • wrong with that because people speak like that. But maybe you get to a point where sometimes

  • you've seen something in a book where grammar is explained, but it's not what you hear people

  • using. And when that happens, there's sometimes quite a lot of confusion. So I'm pointing

  • out these mistakes to you so that you can observe them yourself, and then, you can decide,

  • "Well, I like saying it that way" or, "I don't want to say it that way." "That's the way

  • everyone I know speaks, so I'm going to speak like that" or, "I'm going to choose not to."

  • So -- yeah. Let's take a little look.

  • So something you'll hear a lot in many different accents in English -- British English -- is

  • using "was" for all past subjects. So you learn in your grammar books that you say,

  • "I was, you were, we" -- I need to think about this -- "we were, they were, blah, blah, blah,

  • he, she, it -- was." But a lot of people just say "was" all the time when they're talking

  • about the past. They say, "We was going there" or, "they was joking." It's not standard English,

  • but you will hear it a lot.

  • So we are, in standard English, expected to use "were" in our sentences, not to use "was"

  • all the time.

  • Moving on. No. 2, substituting the past participle where the past simple is needed. Okay. So

  • these are example sentences that you will hear which are considered incorrect in terms

  • of standard English. "I done it. Did you do your homework? I done it." "Where's the vodka?

  • He drunk it." "Where's the dog?" No. Not, "Where's the dog." "Where are the kids? They

  • run over the road." Okay? You'll hear those. But these sentences should either be past

  • simple here because we're talking about completed, finished, past events, or they should be present

  • perfect sentences. So they're using the past participle, which relates to the present perfect

  • as in an action that happened in the past still with an impact now, but it's confused

  • because it's used without an auxiliary verb. So let's compare to the correct standard English

  • versions. "Where's your homework? I did it." " Where's the vodka? He drank it." The past

  • simple form of the verb "drink" is "drank". I'll write that one down because it's a confusing

  • one. So it's "drink, drank, drunk". And -- yeah. "Where are the kids? They ran over the road."

  • This one is confusing as well, "run, ran, run". And let's look at it in the present

  • perfect form. "Where's your homework? I've done it." "Where's the vodka? He's drunk it."

  • And, "Where are the kids? They've run over the road."

  • They're still there. They haven't come back yet.

  • So moving on from there -- is this one a mistake? I'm not sure if this one is a mistake. I know

  • that I do this one, especially in text messages and things like that. No auxiliary verbs when

  • making questions/word elisions. So in my text messages, I say something like this,

  • "You going out later?" It's very direct. Not using the question. Also, in speech, it's used quite

  • a lot. So maybe it's just that native speakers are lazy. We know from the tone that we're

  • asking a question. "You going out later?" Because it goes up, we're not bothering to

  • say the question words. "Do you have a pen?" Just "you have a pen?" It's a bit strong.

  • It's not very polite. And this one -- what? This is wrong. "What you doing? What doing?"

  • No, no, no, this isn't right. What did I mean to say here? Oh, the word is missing. "So

  • we would say, "What you doing" rather than, "What are you doing?"

  • I'd say that it's more direct and less polite to speak like this, and it's incorrect in

  • terms of standard English, but people speak like that.

  • No. 4. I'm not so much of a language pedant, which is someone who thinks that there is

  • only one way to say things and there's, like, a really wrong way to say things and things don't

  • really annoy me so much about language, except No. 4. This is the exception for me. I don't

  • know why it's a big thing for me, but -- substituting "what" for "that" or "which". Where we need

  • to write "that" or "which", some people use the word "what". So here's an example. "I

  • have two jackets what I wear." Sorry, normal people. More people say that. It's not just

  • normal people. "What" -- it doesn't -- I'm trying to understand why people say it. I'm

  • not quite sure. My only thinking is because we sometimes use "what" in a question to refer

  • to things -- "I've got two jackets. What jacket shall I wear?" -- because in this sense, "what"

  • can mean "thing". But in this sentence here, "what" just doesn't belong. We need to use

  • "which" or "that". "I have two jackets which -- or that -- I wear." Because in terms of

  • grammar, "which" or "that" are relative pronouns and we use them to refer to things. "What"

  • is not a relative pronoun, but just in speech, it's fairly common to hear that. Some people

  • don't refer to things using "that" or "which", ever. They say "what" all the time. So -- yeah.

  • When we come back, we'll look at four other, let's say differences -- maybe they're mistakes

  • -- between what native speakers say and what your textbooks tells you.

  • Here we are with some more native speaker issues to talk about. So what are these words,

  • "ain't" and "innit"? These are negative forms for verbs that you probably know. "I ain't

  • doing it." "Ain't" means, like -- "I'm not" is the best way of saying it. So I would say

  • -- my pen is not very, very nice. "I'm not doing it." That's the grammatically standard

  • way, "I'm not doing it." What you'll often hear "ain't" in sentences in London. "I ain't

  • doing it." And also, "It's a nice day, innit?" "Innit", when we have a question tag, people

  • say "innit", which is "isn't it".

  • These ones are important to mention because a lot of people will judge you for saying

  • "ain't" and "innit" as being an uneducated person because there's so much judgment that

  • goes on about language in England. I'm just pointing it out to you. But sometimes, we

  • all probably say "ain't". You can say it to add emphasis or in a joke or whatever. "Go

  • and clean your room. I ain't doing it!" You know, you can say anything if you know what

  • you're saying it for and, you know, you choose to say it that way.

  • So sometimes, speaking in a non-standard way, it can be a bit funny or being inventive with

  • language. But I wouldn't say that in any kind of formal situation or work situation, really.

  • But you know, you'll probably observe just general people using it.

  • Looking at the next point, not saying past participles that end in -en. So here are some

  • verbs, "take, write, break, ate", and here are the forms in the past participle. So "take"

  • becomes "taken"; "write" becomes "written"; "break" becomes "broken"; and "ate" becomes

  • "eaten". A lot of people don't use the past participle form in their sentences. So they

  • say things like this. "He hasn't took his lunch." You take your lunch break. You know,

  • you go away for 20 minutes or 30 minutes to eat. Another verb we can use is "have". "He

  • hasn't had his lunch." But it doesn't fit with the past participle example I'm talking

  • about. So this is wrong, "He hasn't took his lunch." How should it be? "He hasn't taken

  • his lunch."

  • Next example. "Has he wrote the letter?" This is a question form. "Has he wrote the letter?"

  • This is the present perfect, so we need to use the past participle. The past participle

  • of this verb is "written". "Has he written the letter?" I'm just going to put crosses

  • there so you can see it's wrong.

  • "She has broke it." What do we put? "She has broken it." And the last example, "We haven't

  • ate our cake." What's the past participle -- oh, this is the -- I've put the past form

  • there. The present simple tense -- the present form is "eat", so it becomes "eat, ate, eaten".

  • "We haven't eaten our cake."

  • And I'll just mention a pronunciation difference here. Some people will say, "We haven't ate

  • our cake", and some people will say, "We haven't ate our cake." So there's variety there. I

  • personally say "ate". "I ate my lunch earlier."

  • No. 7, let's take a look at this. Confusing "borrow" and "lend". Let me try to explain.

  • What a native speaker may say is, "Borrow me some money. You've got money. I want it.

  • Borrow me some money." But that's wrong. You can lend someone money. So you can say,

  • "Lend me some money, please", demanding it. Or "Could you please lend me some money?" But you can

  • borrow money from somewhere. So you lend me the money, and I borrow it from you. I could

  • say, "I borrowed money from you." "You lent me the money." When it's coming this direction

  • to me, I use "lend". "You lent me the money. I borrowed it from you." Or you could say,

  • "The bank lent me some money. I borrowed some money from the bank." So it depends on the

  • direction. "Lend" is towards, and when it's borrowed, you take it from someone, and you

  • bring it to yourself. You have to give it back later.

  • And No. 8, this isn't one you're going to hear in speech. This is one you're going to

  • see a lot in writing. And it always surprises me, actually, how many people don't know the

  • difference, native speakers, between these words. These are homonyms. That means that

  • they sound the same. "Homonym." Sound the same, there, their, they're, but they have

  • different meanings. So "there" means "place". "Over there." I can understand what that means

  • by feeling it in my hands. "There" -- pointing word, -ere.

  • We use this " their", which is a pronoun for talking about possessions. "This is their

  • pen." There are some people over there, and this pen belongs to them. To do with possession,

  • -eir

  • And this one, with the apostrophe, is a contraction of "they are". And it's different to these

  • two. It means "they are". "They are coming." You know, just like "I am", "you are". "They

  • are" -- it's different. It's not to do with possessing something. It's not to do with

  • pointing at something. So -- yeah. Native speakers are a little bit confused about this

  • and may write the wrong thing in a text message or in an email or something like that. Many,

  • many people. So that can confuse you as well when you think you know it and then you see

  • this fairly common mistake.

  • So there you go. I've just covered eight of probably the most frequent native speaker errors

  • or we could say nonstandard mistakes in speech and in writing. You can go and do a quiz about

  • this lesson on the EngVid site. So go and check the quiz out. You can also subscribe

  • here to my English channel. And you can also subscribe to my other channel, which is also

  • about learning English and stuff. So there are so many videos. You can watch me every

  • day of your life. Or you can even watch them all together in 24 hours of me teaching you

  • English if you want to do that. So I'm going to go now. See you later.

  • Yeah. I just got confused. I'll not be laughing at the beginning of it. No. 7.

Hi, everyone. I'm Jade. Today we're talking about common mistakes that native speakers

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